Macrovision

[drednm]

How can a film taped off TV onto VHS have Macrovision to block copying? I can understand a commercially produced film on VHS having it, but taped off TV???

[Spiny Norman]

How can a film taped off TV onto VHS have Macrovision to block copying? I can understand a commercially produced film on VHS having it, but taped off TV???

Heard about a channel once that had it. But it's rare to encounter.

[drednm]

I don't get it. Unless she taped over some other film and the Macrovision is still there.....

[Spiny Norman]

I don't get it. Unless she taped over some other film and the Macrovision is still there.....

Fill us in on the full story, or else it doesn't make any sense. How do you know it's macrovision and not some other thing that causes a mismatch?

[drednm]

The message comes up and says I'm not allowed to copy. But as far as I can tell, she taped this stuff off TV 20 years ago. Only thing I can think of is that she taped over some old commercially produced VHS film.

[Spiny Norman]

The message comes up and says I'm not allowed to copy. But as far as I can tell, she taped this stuff off TV 20 years ago. Only thing I can think of is that she taped over some old commercially produced VHS film.

What channel was it from?

[Bruce Long]

What are you trying to copy it to? If you are using a dual-drive VHS/DVD recorder, and are trying to copy a VHS to DVD-R, the problem might simply be caused by a removed tab on the VHS cassette. (I know this is what happens when I try to copy from a VHS cassette with the missing tab.) In that case, simply taping a small piece of stiff paper over the missing tab will fix the problem.

[Spiny Norman]

Alternatively it just might be a PAL-NTSC thing. Or it might not. We don't have enough data.

[drednm]

Yes using dual VHS/DVD player and it's always worked before VHS to DVD except for locked commercial tapes. I just copied some tapes a few weeks ago. But these were recorded off TCM in 1994 so there should be no "lock." I don't see any kind of lock or button on the cassettes or anything different from new cassettes.

I don't think the problem is with the VHS component since I just used it recently. Could she have taped over copy-protected movies 20 years ago???

[Bruce Long]

Yes using dual VHS/DVD player and it's always worked before VHS to DVD except for locked commercial tapes. I just copied some tapes a few weeks ago. But these were recorded off TCM in 1994 so there should be no "lock."...

Well, if I ever taped something from TV that I wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally erase, I would remove the lock tab (all blank cassettes have them).

[drednm]

SO ok where is the lock tab? I can't find any info on this..... THANKS

[Bruce Long]

SO ok where is the lock tab? I can't find any info on this..... THANKS

It's on the long edge:
http://www.vhstodvdvancouver.com/suppor ... tapes.html" target="_blank

[Spiny Norman]

It's still strange that the lock tab (audio cassettes have it too) would prevent copying of the tape. I've never heard of it and I can't think of any reason why that should be a feature.

[Bruce Long]

It's still strange that the lock tab (audio cassettes have it too) would prevent copying of the tape. I've never heard of it and I can't think of any reason why that should be a feature.

Strange or not, I've had a few different dual DVD/VHS recorders, and it was that way on all of them; if the tab on a VHS tape was gone, I had to "restore" it or else the tape could not be copied to DVD.

[Spiny Norman]

It's still strange that the lock tab (audio cassettes have it too) would prevent copying of the tape. I've never heard of it and I can't think of any reason why that should be a feature.

Strange or not, I've had a few different dual DVD/VHS recorders, and it was that way on all of them; if the tab on a VHS tape was gone, I had to "restore" it or else the tape could not be copied to DVD.

Then it must be so, only I can't think of a reason why, unless it's some side effect, or a very cheap way to prevent people from copying commercial releases from VHS to DVD.

[Bruce Long]

...Then it must be so, only I can't think of a reason why, unless it's some side effect, or a very cheap way to prevent people from copying commercial releases from VHS to DVD.

Well, those recorders won't let you internally copy a commercial DVD to VHS. They probably thought they should make a token effort to similarly prevent copying a commercial VHS to DVD.

[momsne]

Some DVD players, especially those rebadged as SONYs, are overly sensitive and give false readings of copy protection present. Or the problem could be that the player cannot make a "handshake" with the TV if you are feeding the signal through an HDMI cable. The problem in that case is the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) copy protection put into loads of audio-visual electronic equipment to prevent the copying of "garbage" (most TV shows and movies). If you are using RCA composite cables, yellow for video, red and white for audio, HDCP is not an issue. There are devices on the market that strip Macrovision from the video signal that you could use to test if MV is causing the problem.

[drednm]

I've transferred many VHS to DVD on this equipment. It's never been a problem. The tapes are 20 years old and taped off TCM, again never a problem. There's nothing fancy going on here but I don't know why the stupid cassettes say NOT ALLOWED. The tapes are not mine but they can't be old commercial cassettes. They're just stupid old cassettes with old films from TCM.

It works one day, but not the next. Pain in the ass.

[drednm]

Nothing works. I've wasted a half dozen disks on this. Thanks for trying, guys.

[moviepas]

I always copy to the hard drive of the DVD/Blu recorder before then copying to tape. I did get given a home made tape of a Gershwin show from PBS(which they told me they would not be making a DVD available) to make a DVD-R and it did have copy protection from the broadcast and it is a fact that some shows are or were copy once only, if you like. Philips offered this to cable companies many years ago but I saw little use of it. However, I did fool around when I had some free time and got the DVD done. I lost no discs in the way I do it. I used to be able to reuse DVD-Rs from the recorder if there was an error and there was a setting to erase the used part and start again. It blocked off the section recorded on and the rest of the disc was usable, out less time to compensate for the blocked section. I use only Panasonic recorders &TV currently. All my equipment has NTSC/PAL settings and I have those other devices hinted at.

Macrovison was often tauted as a vision enhancer, but the reverse was often the case in playback of original protected tapes with all sorts of image effects such as flag waving at the top of the picture. Macrovison tapes can be copied but the copy plays back light and dark without an inbetween signal cruncher. Very annoying. If I have a copy to do over a recorded tape that has the tab removed on the spin I used sticky tape over the area. If someone gave me a tape to copy with a tab unremoved, I always removed it before their eyes to prevent accidental wiping of the program. I have seen tapes with sliders to use or prevent overcopying which is somewhat dangerous.

[coolcatdaddy]

I've run into this issue before with old VHS tapes recorded as "home movies" or from tv broadcasts.

The Macrovision signal is encoded in the "blanking signal" between each frame - it's like a pulse that signals the equipment that copy protection is present.

On a VHS tape, this part of the signal is recorded on one edge of the tape. If the tape has started to decompose, has gotten physically damaged along the edge, or isn't tracking properly, it can trick equipment into thinking that a copy protection signal is there.

There are several things you can try - adjusting the tracking manually, doing a fast-forward and rewind to retension the tape before playback, or even playing back on a different VCR that might track the tape differently.

[momsne]

Macrovision is encoded in the vertical blanking interval of the video, in the overscan area. If your video image starts rolling, that bar you see between frames contains the VBI information, which also includes stuff like closed captioning on line 21 of USA NTSC video. When VHS tapes became obsolete, Macrovision and Hollywood studios got a compliant Congress (read shyster lawyers with their hands always out for cash) to require an anti-copy chip be put in all DVD players to thwart copying. The problem is, almost no one copies pre-recorded DVDs and many consumers are giving up on physical media (which includes music CDs) altogether.

Hollywood studios and the music industry have spent tens of millions of dollars demonizing fans who had the effrontery to want to avoid paying for some of the music and movies they wanted. In the 1980s, when VHS tapes of new movies came out, the studios priced them at from $70 to $90, priced to sell to video stores which rented the tapes out. Now,thanks to NetFlix and Redbox and the like, video rental stores are mostly history. But those old movie VHS tapes from 15 years and more still have their Macrovision encoding as the tapes molder away in garbage dumps. And sometimes, the anti-copy technology that Congress thought so much of can reach across the years and bite in the a** a member of Nitrateville.